The way I figure it, there are two kinds of sugar plums – the chopped dried fruit-and-nut-ball bullshit kind and the sixteenth century method of preserving the fruit in pure sugar syrup.

I chose to make the latter.

The Historic Cookery Page has a recipe adapted from Sir Hugh Plat’s Delights for Ladies (published 1609). The process is long and complicated, and the result tastes like a toothache, but you’ll feel like a better person for having made them.